Princess-Cut Diamonds

Beautiful. Fit for the finest wedding rings and most elegant jewelry. They remind me of the description every girl deserves and exactly what we are trying to help them realize about themselves. They are all princesses and their value is incomparably more than all the diamonds in the world.

It is so hard for women to believe that though, especially coming from the circumstances which bring them to our door step. Today was a day rare to even our New York City centers. I was sent to Brooklyn for the first time, working at the first EMC center, with a director who has been doing this work for 12 years. Today we had the second rape victim in all her years of experience. Our Lady is the most frequent intercessor here and I mentioned some of her great work before. Some actions are just too evil to comprehend, especially when you’re dealing with them face to face. TV, movies, news stories…they can be horrible, but, at least for me, I think they always maintained a certainly level of surrealism being that they were happening to other people in other places. Now I’m here, where these things happen every day and where these women are bringing the reality of it directly into my life.

This girl, who was the victim of rape almost four months ago, has kept the secret of her pregnancy to herself most of this time. Then the neighbors started talking because they noticed her stomach. They are starting to bother her. Many of them know what happened and ridicule her for being pregnant…they will even more if she keeps the baby. How do they know? Because it was one of them who did it…and he filmed himself doing it…and he put it on youtube and Facebook to show. off. To show off what he did to her! Police? Too corrupt to do anything about it. Even though there is video of the whole thing…

We prayed. Our Center Director, Linda, she is a prayer warrior. It’s amazing that all the religious images around don’t scare people off sometimes. I was in the back having lunch and she starts calling for me. She says the girl is here, the rape victim, and tells me to pray to the Blessed Mother right now. I asked her name and she took me out to meet her and get her name. I went back to praying. Then they were in the ultrasound room looking at the sonogram. A perfectly developing baby! I know Linda is praying hard. Every time she leaves the room I hear her praying to Jesus for help. We are watching the baby and the girl and her aunt are still wavering on what they want to do. Understandably, the girl is having a very hard time facing the idea of bearing the child such a terrible experience. Then, Linda tells the girl to put her hand on her stomach and ask her little baby to hold her hand. Kind of strange right? But sure enough the girl moves her hand to her abdomen and starts trying to coax her child to hold her hand. We are all waiting and encouraging. As we watch in amazement, the little unborn baby begins to lift up a hand in the darkness of the womb towards her mother’s! Then, she lifts up her other one. Unbelievable….to our great astonishment, she then lifts of both her feet as well!! Now, as Linda pleads for the child’s life to the mother and aunt, the little 15 week old baby is reaching for her mother with all her limbs! A little later, when Linda asks the girl at what point she new for sure she would have to keep it, the girl said it was when her baby was reaching for her – she knew then she couldn’t leave it.

But her decision to keep the child does not turn her life into a happy fairytale. She is living at a shelter, her very close sister is also pregnant, and if she keeps the baby her attacker is going to consider it bragging rights in the neighborhood. Linda recognized the need to get her out of her situation and also the importance of keeping her with her sister. Keeping the two of them together almost turns their coinciding pregnancies into a blessing. After bypassing the usual red tape, Linda was able to get them placed together in one of the homes run by the Sisters of Life.

After the girl left, there was much rejoicing and thanksgiving. Heaven was rejoicing! Linda reiterated how rare it was for a girl to have a turnaround (change her mind about having an abortion) in just one visit, so how much more for a girl who coming from a traumatic rape. Are we surprised that God is such a miracle worker? We shouldn’t be. There can be miracles if you believe.